They came, they saw, they conquered! During their visit to YouTube HQ in November, the Community Council had the opportunity to exchange thoughts and ideas directly with 'Tube staff from various teams and participate in usability studies. Through ongoing discussions with YouTube and beta feature testing (like video recommendations and a new home page design in the works), users bgirl5, bradofarrell, sarrycrey, tlg847, and visiblemode have made great strides in representing the community's voice within the product. Here's a rundown of features YouTube's Community Council has brought their influence to thus far:

--CHARACTER COUNTER FOR COMMENTS - A visual counter letting you know when you are approaching the character limit when writing comments on videos.

--RECENT COMMENTS - A module on your channel page showing all the videos (& comments) you have ever commented on.

To continue the cycle of feedback and discussions going between the community, the Council, and YouTube, we invite you to send us your ideas for new features, site improvements, and your input on the following list to suggestions@youtube.com.

items currently in progress or under consideration that we'd like to get more community feedback on:

--'VLOGGER' TYPE CHANNEL - What type of specific features would you like to see for a vlogger account type?

--'YOUTUBE BASICS' VIDEO - A brief video with educational step-by-step instructions for things like: how to report issues to Help Center, how to make the most of your channel design, etc.. What are some helpful tips you think would be cool for newer users?

--MORE CHANNEL STATS - What kind of stats related to your channel would you be most interested in seeing?

--VIDEO RECOMMENDATIONS - These could be based on what types of videos you and your friends watch, add as 'favorites', channels you subscribe to, etc. (ie. "If you like this channel, you might also like...").

--DISCOVERING NEW COMMUNITIES - Offering new ways for YouTubers to find other like-minded users and sub-communities more easily.

--EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS - We have heard many requests for improvements on our notifications system and want to get your take on changes you would like to see made to emails and getting updates from YouTube in general.

--FULLSCREEN PLAYER - What features are you interested in seeing on the full screen player?

--COMMENTS/VIDEO RESPONSES PER INDEX POINT - Referring to a specific point in the video you are commenting on or making a video response for.

Remember to send your thoughts on the features above to suggestions@youtube.com and we'll check them out. (Note: this email address is for feature requests and ideas only. Please contact our Help Center if you are having an issue you need immediate assistance with).

Our goal is to continue bringing forth ideas and feedback from you, and the Council, and turn them into actual features on the site which will benefit the overall YouTube community. Rest assured, this group has been working diligently to turn users' suggestions into realities.

I love the idea of more channel stats... may be the total number of comments on your videos, the average ratings and link stats to your channel page?

The recommended videos features based on your videos views and favourites sounds cool but not sure if I would want it to take in to account my friend's activites and I accept all friends request so I may not have too much in common with all of them.

How about... is there anyway to get relevent global blog enteries included on UK (and other countries') blogs? I subscribe to the YouTube channel which is how I found this blog but had to switch to the global site to read it. I regularly read the UK blog.

Thanks guys, YouTube just keeps getting better and better... now back to the UK site for me! Bye x

Here are some suggestions I and several other YouTubers would love to see come to YT:

******1. The ability to choose which frame from our entire video becomes the thumbnail photo. (not just 3 frames to choose from)- this is the most requested feature that has been on our minds since YT started*****

2. The old way most viewed, rated, and discussed lists were set up. The drop down menu makes it hard to navigate, especially for new users.

3. The ability to organize our videos into catagories, and for us to choose the order in which they appear (not just nine)

4. A catagory section for Episodic Series

5. The ability to put html into our channel

6. The ability to see all the urls where our video is linked from (not just 5)

What about security against the threats and stalkers ? You all know Twish1999 and what happened to her account. There was also positiveSue that got driven off youtube with threats and attacks. There are many more. Why can't you police your website and get rid of the psychos ?

WILL YOU ALLOW ME TO POST REPRESENTATIVE SAMPLES OF VISUAL POETRY (songs ARE poetry to music) AS RESPONSE VIDEOS SO YOU CAN SEE JUST WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT. I'LL JUST POST 3 OF MY OWN... BECAUSE, A POETRY CATEGORY THO MAY NOT BE HIGH ON THE POPULARITY POLLS, IT DOES HAVE A GREAT NUMBER OF PEOPLE INTERESTED. YT - BE MORE LEADNG EDGE! ADVOCATE INTELLIGENCE CLASS AND CULTURE. IT'S JUST ANOTHER FILE FOLDER TO A SERVER.

One way, to meet other people on Youtube is to view their favorites. There are so many different types of videos there. I thought another way to promote Youtubers is to promote their Favorites so somewhere on the main page, some Youtuber could be promoted with a link that takes you to the first page of their favorites. ~Raven

Since there are a few Youtubers on the most viewed sections whom are taking up multiple spots, why not have it where each Youtuber can only hold one spot, per day, per section. The video that would hold that 1 spot would be the one with the highest stats. A youtuber could be in the most viewed, the most favorites, most commented, etc., in one day BUT they couldnt have more than 1 video in each individual section. It could be set up in our "My Account" where the system would automatically pick the video with the highest stats but you could change that in your my accounts. You could request an email notification if one or more of your vids were in the same section thus you could pick which one you want promoted. This gives more room for other Youtubers to be promoted and will help stir away cheaters too. ~Raven

How about actually listening to what the community is actually telling you about haters and trolls who send threats to other you tubers? To me, this is the number one issue that YT has to resolve. Or do they really want to be found guilty of corporate manslaughter for not listening to the warning signals that are sent out?

Also, please give us an email system that works. The current one is too cumbersome and clunky. If someone sends me a message, please forward that message to me, not just a notification that I've received one. We need Basic email functionality, the ability to create folders, forward messages, things like that.

Yeah, why hide your friends or subscribers etc. when it so easy to hack them. Also, someone is add inappropriate videos to my playlist that I made by hack it. Those video end up at the end of my playlist.... fix that!

Listne to the ocmmunity for once!!! GET RID OF PORN!! are you kidding! seriously hteres tons of porn! stop banning jesari and get rid of the porn and violance!!! and remove haterds and spammers!!! also you should have somehting for smaller people to get recquinised!

Well, it's good that some things are being accomplished. And anything that can help people discover new channels that they may like is something I'm in big support for... maybe something similar to a compatibility survey? :P

I would like to see a statistic that tells you from what videos are people subscribing to your channel. So for example, I go to My Videos and it tells me 48 people subscribed to your channel from this video. This should be part of the API. TubeMogul.com has the stats thing covered just buy them and save some time.

The character counter on comments is a good idea. LiveVideo had that since the beginning. Improving contact managemanet is good letting people set a Top 10 friends and subscription would be nice because your channel is like a big advertisement. Also, allow us to view more up to 50 contacts at a time and sort by pending and approved will help us a lot to clear up our contact list.

What would be a really good idea would be on Send Message to let us set whether we want to use Youtube mail or have it go direct to an email address we supply. This should be pretty simple because you already do this on Share video. This will solve the problem with larger content providers not being able to access their Youtube mail because of message overflow and offload some of that traffic to other site built to do email. You will not be able to reply from your that email address but that a trade off a lot of us would take. YT can do a form just like on the Share video function.

I'd like to see all of the 30 second non-sense videos removed as soon as they're posted. I don't care to scroll through countless videos of useless junk with misleading headers to get you to watch the 30 second BS.

I'd like to see all of the 30 second non-sense videos removed as soon as they're posted. I don't care to scroll through countless videos of useless junk with misleading headers to get you to watch the 30 second BS.

EXTREME FRUSTRATION! I am on a landline.WHY,OH WHY, WHY can't you guys give us a step by step process to watch videos. You hve triangels, bars with triangle pointing another way, little sidewas "v" marks at each side of the pic, flashing pics, 2 at a time across a window, a count down that seems to indicate how many minutes have been recorded, but what is being recorded is not indicated, no earthly idea of how to stop it, back it up, start it up, fast back, fast forward, no idea how to save whatever is being recorded, no idea where to save it, no idea why sometimes it all gets erased and next time I cannot stop replying it...just total insanity, no instructions of how to use your site!!!EXTREME FRUSTRATION!!!!!

1. Will you please upgrade the flash player to Version: 9 to improve the quality of the video play back. Like so many other video sites have done!

2. Could you please move the big fat YouTube logo into the control area, like so many other video sites have done with their logos!

3. Also, with your option to customize the video play, can we have please have the option to resize of the border around the player and more colors, not just have one big fat border, Yuk! how about the look and size of the video player's control bar, What about a pick of ASPECT RATIO of 4:3 or 16:9, LOL a NO brainer,

4. WOW just one of these would be a real improvement to YouTube web site, forget all the new features for now and do some real work, if you guys need help with this, please don’t feel silly to ask, and don’t let your egos get in the way, I know all the above would be hard to implement, It's easy to divert attention from real improvements, by coming out with all the new features you guys are doing now, but I understand, NiteAngel can help all of you at YouTube, just ask.

5. So let me put this all in inpersective, right now you got let’s say a car that has many features, but the engine is a pig :( IE

a. your web site has many features :)

b. your video player and playback is piggish (poor quality playback) (the look of the video player is old) :( :(

Is it good for the "community" when someone uses "gamed" center pics, that are copyright protected images? And no, he doesn't have permission. They are all google images, and clear violations of TOS, and his partner contract. BTW I don't care if he's trying to make a living with this. Asking for a level playing field, and consistent rule enforcement, are not a personal attack.

Brad is a prick, and possibly the worst decision YT has ever made. He contributes nothing to the community. Please let me know when he has ANYTHING, of merit, to offer. He has been rude, and condescending, to multiple users since his inclusion in this council began. His personality is worse than his videos. Who thought that was a good idea??? *returns the shite list* Have a good day. =)

This is rubbish. All of these 'changes' have been put forward through the complaints system for sometime by multiple individuals and simply not acted upon till now - YouTube, you are meely employing the "Councillors" as a mouthpiece, lie your earlier failed attempt with DamienEstridge. One feature of note that I know MANY people have requested is to REMOVE closed and suspended accounts from ALL of our Subsciber lists - oh that's right, that would lower your favoured partners numbers.

RE: Email NotificationsI'd just like to see it work consistently! Please don't put your efforts into... "Whoopee! What new changes and additions would you like?" ...until the preferences that one has already indicated, in the notification section of ones account, actually work consistantly.Ya feel me? (that's me trying to be young and hip) Oy!

I'd really like to see the 'music' part of the remixer working. But working in a way that, if i've already uploaded a video and wanted to change 30 seconds in the beginning, without effecting the rest of the video. I'd really like to see that functionality. With audio swap, I don't want to replace 'all' of my audio, but I'd like to use some of the music you've made available through there. So on video intros, I'd like the ability to to update videos I've uploaded with that music. I hope i've explained myself clearly.

Additional categories would be nice—I personally would favor a Spoken Word or Poetry section, but then again, that’s just a personal bias plus I realize not a lot of folk care for that.

At the very least there should be an R&B category, and no I’m not referring to a musical genre but rather to the Rack & Booty show boaters so that minors won’t be exposed to that kind of smut from the homepage.

A female friend of mine who is a state prosecutor tells me that every convicted serial sex offender like pedophiles, serial rapists and sexual degenerates who have access to the internet HAS an active Youtube account which explains the enormous popularity of that sort of garbage on the site.

How are you guys going to address the “smut factor” which seems to be driving the overwhelming majority of internet traffic to the site?

Wouldn’t you be concerned with the same if this were happening to your real life community?

How would you feel if a bunch of XXX Video stores opened up just yards from your home doorstep?

Additional categories would be nice—I personally would favor a Spoken Word or Poetry section, but then again, that’s just a personal bias plus I realize not a lot of folk care for that.

At the very least there should be an R&B category, and no I’m not referring to a musical genre but rather to the Rack & Booty show boaters so that minors won’t be exposed to that kind of smut from the homepage.

A female friend of mine who is a state prosecutor tells me that every convicted serial sex offender like pedophiles, serial rapists and sexual degenerates who have access to the internet HAS an active Youtube account which explains the enormous popularity of that sort of garbage on the site.

How are you guys going to address the “smut factor” which seems to be driving the overwhelming majority of internet traffic to the site?

Wouldn’t you be concerned with the same if this were happening to your real life community?

How would you feel if a bunch of XXX Video stores opened up just yards from your home doorstep?

with the iphone and itouch, youtube is becoming very portable. Perhaps there's a way to stream video while it's recording?? if so then maybe the second generation iphone or itouch could become a video phone via youtube. . . I would buy it cause that would be fucking cool.

I agree with GoAway0000 because I see channels who join within a few days yet they're allowed to have the 10minute+ video upload limit while people who've been on YouTube for around 6 months don't get that right.

I want video recommendations. Top right next to "Welcome username, Inbox". Let users click on Recommendations which should be automatically generated based on ratings, favorites and recent viewing history of the user. The user should as well be able to filter the recommendations by type, category, tags, genre, length, user, quality and more.

I think that there should be two seperate types of channels (besides all the subtypes that already exist)...there should be a youtube elite section, or youtube gold. This is a label you can put your channel under to say that your videos are better than most of the crap on here.

Youtube elite channels could be rated by anyone who subscribes on a monthly basis (optional of course) based on the quality of videos. Those youtube elite channels with anything lower than 3 stars could be booted off the "elite" server.

Actually, if you aren't interested in a youtube elite section, go more off of my channel rating idea. If a channel could be rated by subscribers and possibly even viewers weekly in a side bar (like the bulliten box), you could have a section for "top rated" channels of the week, month...ect.

Heck, you could even have a "favorite channels" optional section just like favorite videos. This could help word get out better about good channels.

I'd like some keyboard shortcuts. Using YouTube is so tiresome. Almost everything is by mouse click. I know it's a website but that's just it. It is a great drawback of many web applications. No keyboard shortcuts.

You could play, pause, rewind, volume up and down, show fullscreen or normal with just pushing keyboard. No clicking. Just like you use your Media Player or Winamp.

I have a bunch of new ideas that could improve the website but I think it would be better if the bugs and minor details were dealt with first before the new features happened. Why did the "add video to group" link/button get removed under the videos? Streams constantly crashing and being taken off channel completely. Also, I have two suggestions for feature's. My first one is to have the ability to instantly visit a channels stream from the click of a button. My second one is to have more diversity on the partner's program and the featured page.

Another suggestion would have to be, If you go to 'Most subscribed / this week' listing, there are some indecent thumbnails for channels that have been suspended. If you suspend a channel, you should make it so that it automatically removes it from ANY lists.

So now, I've done the footwork for YouTube. The stalkers here don't get banned fast enough, if EVER, even though flagged over and over, and if suspended they just come back with another account. ONE account per email - ENFORCE IT. IP addresses CAN be blocked, and should be. Otherwise, at least give people the information they need to protect themselves and their families.

So now, I've done the footwork for YouTube. The stalkers here don't get banned fast enough, if EVER, even though flagged over and over, and if suspended they just come back with another account. ONE account per email - ENFORCE IT. IP addresses CAN be blocked, and should be. Otherwise, at least give people the information they need to protect themselves and their families.

How about HTML profiles for anyone who has uploaded at least 25 videos? And an actual blog for those who want it? And the ability to have Partner abilities without getting paid (auto-play, banners, etc.)

YouTube has got to do something about STALKERS here! If the company doesn't want to get involved, they can provide helpful information. If there is going to be a "YouTube Basics, PLEASE include: SAFETY on YouTube HOW to report threats to the authorities WHO to contact WHAT the difference is between bullying and STALKING. Here's the info: FBI - find your local office: http://www.fbi.gov/contact/fo/fo.htm FBI Internet Crime reporting: http://www.ic3.gov/ WHO@ - Helpful site for information and internet safety tips: http://www.haltabuse.org/help/respond.shtml So now, I've done the footwork for YouTube. The stalkers here don't get banned fast enough, if EVER, even though flagged over and over, and if suspended they just come back with another account. ONE account per email - ENFORCE IT. IP addresses CAN be blocked, and should be. Otherwise, at least give people the information they need to protect themselves and their families.

Please.. can someone please tell me where I can find a normal simple form to send in a suggestion for new features for YouTube. I surfed for a long time on the helpsection but I just couldn't find a normal way to send in my suggestion. is there an emailadress what I can use..? Maybe someone can point me out where to look and find ;) ?

Sorry for the offtopic comment but this is sort of the only way to leave some feedback or questions

Well apparently this is a commmentsection where more people leave suggestions. Well I would like to be skip forward to the next video in my playlist when I'm listening/looking at one of my playlists. Now there is no possibility to do something; you can skip in the video to the last 5 seconds and then automaticaly the next video in you list comes up.. but a skip-forward button would be nice ;)

I AM LOOKING FOR A ARTIST AND NAME OF A SONG. I REMEMBER HEARING THIS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 2000. I SEARCHED IT OUT AT THAT TIME AND FOUND IT. IT WAS ONLY A SINGLE, AND I THINK IT WAS XSACPE OR ESCAPE........NOT SURE AT ALL. THE LYRICS WENT LIKE IT WAS A COLD DAY IN LATE DECEMBER, A DAY I'LL ALWAYS REMEMBER; THE DAY YOU TOOK YOUR LOVE AWAY FROM ME...............ITS A SLOW JAM. PLEASE PLEASE HELP ME FIND THIS

jasminenw, jasminenww, turnipspotter, notfem, jasnwest, remmapseid ,thisangelsucks are just a few user names this U.K. user holds using proxy accounts/server. jasminenw (not women) is using these accounts to bring down ratings on recently featured video responsers. Not only does he poses a women to get off on blk str8 and gay men, but now poses as a 13 y/o little girl to seem like his innocent which he is far from.

"Not a genuine video response" is the title of the video made by one of the MANY people this UK user has been harassing. Not to mention HE opens accounts mimicking user names and while posting hatred all over youtube in attempt to make those users look mad. RIOB24 mimic as ri0b24 w/zero. Fluffeetalks mimic as FLuffteeTalkz Agustin1955 mimic as agustin19S5.... and the list goes on.

I found my hubby at the niche interracial dating site named interracialloves.com . As you know thousands of new members join daily to meet dream date in this comfortable community of cultures and ethnicities !!

An annoying problem running rampant this past month has been an inability for Windows-based machines to play a large percentage of your site's videos. They work just fine on Macs, but they're not on PCs. Please fix this problem.

How does someone get onto your Community Council? Would a 55-going-on-56-year-old female from the East Coast who only views but does not upload be acceptable, or am I wrong for your demographics? Love the idea of seeing all of my comments!

Dont add anything besides free speech.that will slow down u tube like music or and insane amount of flash junk its about user videos just make those better quality and better ways of connecting to others, those are the key.

Dont add anything besides free speech.that will slow down u tube like music or and insane amount of flash junk its about user videos just make those better quality and better ways of connecting to others, those are the key.

I want to know why You Tube made D and C Videos a partner in the program , This Man is a known Racest and cut You tube down,Talked Down on you Tube, and Now you make him a Partner ? D And C has taken down all video that are neg to You Tube. He was very angry that you made a other person the canada rep.I myself want him gone after he told me that i may not chat to a gay man thats my friend Moosedave.thank you

Hi YouTube team thanks for being involved with the community. Please have a look at kaliangelsmuse1's new video. That little girl deserves a feature! She went from modern girly stuff.. to jazz to 80's music to heavy metal!!!

Ok a few things when I go to YouTube.com I don't see a "suggentions" link anywhere like mentioned in your video. Also please put this list back on the first page of "account"# General Messages# Friend Invites# Received Videos# Video Comments# Video Responses# SentIt was there yesterday. I want to click acoount, then video comments. not go hunting for it. Thanks!

Never been here before and never gonna be here again probably. The only reason why i came to this blog is just to ask where is my "sort by: most viewed". I wont be watching videos till is back. That's all.

YouTube doesn't care about the ease of getting the Stereo quality videos musicians require so our videos don't sound like garbage. LiveVideo and Ning Network video sites provide Stereo videos for their users. Why does YouTube deprive us of easy of this? Why? Why? Why? I now have videos that were playing in Stereo if &fmt=18 is added coming up as ''We're sorry, this video is no longer available.'' I presume I will get no response from YouTube regarding this Comment... unfortunately...

YouTube doesn't care about the ease of getting the Stereo quality videos musicians require so our videos don't sound like garbage. LiveVideo and Ning Network video sites provide Stereo videos for their users. Why does YouTube deprive us of easy of this? Why? Why? Why? I now have videos that were playing in Stereo if &fmt=18 is added coming up as ''We're sorry, this video is no longer available.'' I presume I will get no response from YouTube regarding this Comment... unfortunately...